Othello is a well-respected Venetian general. He is highly valued by the Senate as he
is experienced in battle and very professional. He has served the army since he was very young. Othello is obviously very good at his job otherwise the senate would not have chosen him to lead the war in Cyprus.
‘Here comes Brabantio and the valiant Moor’
Othello is a brave and prized part of the Venetian government, and therefore is the obvious choice for the senate when they are selecting the man who will defend one of their most prized properties. This shows the audience a positive view of Othello compared to the negative views created by Iago.
Othello, as far as the Senate goes, is one of them while he is needed, but as soon as
trouble comes his way, in this case, Brabantio and Desdemona, he is cast aside and Brabantio is made more important as he is one of them. This is suggested in Trevor Nunn’s production of his positioning in relation to the inner circle. When the Senate are discussing the war in Cyprus with Othello, they welcome Othello to their circle around a table, but when Brabantio storms in, Othello is made to stand away from the table just outside the circle symbolising that he is not totally accepted by the Senate as he is ‘different’. After Othello presents his case to the Senate, the Duke takes Othello’s side and the rest of the Senate follow him, but it is clear that Othello is different from the white Venetian’s, so is not fully accepted. Brabantio accepts Othello until he finds out he has married Desdemona.
The first thing that we hear about Iago’s relationship with Othello is that he hates him,
‘Thou told’st me thou didst hold him in thy hate.’
This gives the audience a negative impression of Othello, as he must not be a very good person if someone hates him that much. Iago goes onto degrade Othello’s character by not calling him by his name but as demeaning names such as ‘lascivious Moor’ and others suggesting animal imagery like ‘Barbary Horse’. Iago refers to Othello’s race only, which takes away his individuality as a person. Iago provokes Brabantio by telling him graphic stories about Othello and Desdemona. No father wants to hear about their daughter like that so it is obvious by telling Brabantio it is going to get him angry at Othello, which is what Iago wants as it will help in his plan to destroy Othello. This creates a negative view of Othello, but also somewhat makes the audience feel sorry for him as Iago is in the process of demolishing his reputation as a good person.
The audience that would have watched this play in Elizabethan England wouldn’t have had a lot of experience with people of colour, but would certainly have known about them. They associated black people with evil as black was a colour that represented evil. People in Elizabethan England also were afraid of thing that they were not familiar with or things that were different to what they thought of as normal. Therefore when watching the play, the audience whom the play was aimed at may have sided with Iago’s first impressions of Othello, it was what they expected as they associated black people with evil
The audience now however, would tend not to accept what Iago has to say about
Othello, as it is clear he is jealous of Othello and only talks about hating him in his soliloquies or to Roderigo. To Othello’s face he is ‘honest Iago’- even an Elizabethan audience would spot quite quickly that we are not to trust Iago’s opinions of Othello. When we meet Othello, he presents himself well and you find it hard to believe anyone could hate him as Iago does.
This is when Iago speaks to Othello in scene two, he tells him to run away from the Senate who are seemingly searching for him. Othello does not runaway. In scene three he marshals his evidence that he is a worthy husband for Desdemona and drops these into his speech when he appears to be merely defending himself against the accusation of witchcraft. The way he presents himself in his first speech is very important as it immediately changes our previous impressions of him through Iago. Othello speaks very calmly and eloquently which annihilates any past bad impressions of him being savage, ignorant, barbaric or uncivilised.
‘And I loved her, that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have used.’
When Othello gives his speech to the Senate to show he did not use witchcraft to trick
Desdemona into marrying him, he speaks very expressively and charms the senate and the Duke until they think he is the valiant Moor once again. This gives the audience an overall positive view of Othello.
Othello’s speech is different at the beginning of the play than at the end, in Act 5
scene two. At the end of the play, Othello is not himself anymore, he is no longer the calm and collected eloquently speaking valiant Moor. He is the cowardly, fragmented, uncivilised barbarian that Iago describes in the very first scene. This shows Othello to be the false image created by Iago, not what we know of him from his own actions throughout the play, he is not his real self.
Despite Iago’s attempts to present Othello in a very negative way, once we meet
Othello it is extremely hard to view him in the same way as Iago does. Othello has no
soliloquies Act 1, but does later in the play when he becomes evil, which shows us he used to
be a very open person and therefore what we see is what we get with Othello, nevertheless as
we get to the end of the play he becomes more and more like our very first impression of him. The presentation Shakespeare gives of a hero with black skin allows the audience to challenge
their own predisposition to judge on appearances by exploring the theme of appearance versus
reality.
